I honestly believe that in the winter of 2011-12, someone will see weather.

Way too early for me to even try to make a call.

But not too early for some, especially those who use astronomical teleconnections.

I believe the long range forecast from Theo was for the return of El Nino [in some form or shape] for 2011-2012.

My personal lean in looking into this pattern once it begins to take shape would be for El Nino conditions in some shape or form with the potential for an official weak El Nino by one definition or another for 2011-2012.

We have a long wait to see if this comes to fruition... long enough that there aren't many, if any, teleconnections that provide sufficient enough insight to back up a prediction with data... and I'm no astro-meteorologist.

YEP it sure looks that way, when I saw this I was like "Are you serious" I mean come on...The GFS cant even get the weather right for 10 days from a given time frame. Meaning it was origionally supposed to turn Bitter Cold in the East the final week of November according to the GFS just as little as a week ago it was still showing this...to now showing high's in the 50's for the last week of November!

In recent weeks, the subsurface water temperature anomalies in the Pacific have really warmed up and the warm pool has shifted east. In the past week, it now looks like that warm water will surface in the Niņo 3 area (though Niņo 3.4/4 still look to remain cool for the time being).

I'm sure people will be calling for El Niņo for winter 2011/12... but it is still too early to tell. While sea surface temps look to be warming in the tropical Pacific, the atmospheric dynamic of ENSO, the SOI, remains at record highs (indicating strong La Niņa conditions atmospherically).

This could go either way. The only good similar cases to what we have now are the 1970-1974, 1962-1965, and 1915-1917 periods.

I honestly have favored 1970-1974 for the Pacific despite the current warm AMO (which is why the U.S. impacts have not been the same... the warm AMO supporting a suppressed Atlantic jet (negative NAO)... hence why 2009/10 was colder in the east and warmer in the west than the unusual strong El Niņo of 1972/73).

If that were to play out similarly, we could expect 2011/12 to have ENSO neutral to weak La Niņa conditions as the atmosphere remains in La Niņa mode but the overabundance of warm subsurface water keeps the Niņo regions from staying cool. Once that warmer water has had a chance to surface and is recycled back westward again by stronger trade winds than normal... the La Niņa then restrengthens for 2012/13 before finally reverting to neutral/warm conditions.

We could also be in a similar position to the early/mid '60s when we had a rapid succession of flips in the Pacific with La Niņa in 1961/62 and 1962/63 followed by El Niņo in 1963/64, La Niņa in '65, and El Niņo again in '66. That would support a moderate El Niņo developing for next winter. The winter of 1965/66 was hardly typical for its impacts on the U.S.

You also have the 1949/50-1951/52 analogs... though this fit better into the 2007/08-2009/10 period. But it still had an El Niņo following a La Niņa. The El Niņo was weak and it was overpowered by both the cold PDO and warm AMO... so the west was cool while the east was warm.

We cannot discount 1915-1917. That period had a relatively weak solar variable as well as a volcanic component. After a succession of neutral to weak El Niņo conditions from 1911/12-1915/16, 1916/17 saw strong La Niņa conditions. That winter had persistently high SOI values that remained high all throughout 1917, leading to the record positive SOI values during the winter of 1917/18. That winter did not see particularly cold values in the tropical Pacific despite the strong SOI component. It's as if the ocean ran out of cold water to pool up. Might we see a winter like that next year? (I hope not.. the summer of 1917 saw brutal drought across much of the U.S. and then the winter was dry and cold for much of the nation).

After 1917/18 came a strong El Niņo that led to major famine in south Asia. The screwed up weather patterns caused by the El Niņo exacerbated the Spanish flu outbreak.

So in summary: It's a crapshoot at this point. The ocean is saying goodbye to La Niņa it seems.. .but the atmosphere is stubbornly keeping high pressure over Tahiti with torrential rains over Australia (as we've all heard about). All in all... we could be in for a heck of a summer/fall/winter. Or maybe things will be benign and we can save a bit on our grocery bills. (One can hope).